Announcing our 2016 Honorary Doctorate + Emily Award Recipients

Founder, owner and director of the Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Catriona Jeffries has been curating the exhibition program of the gallery for close to 25 years, skyrocketing the careers of countless artists onto the world stage. After earning her undergraduate degree in Art History from the University of British Columbia, Jeffries began representing some of Canada’s most important and influential artists, many of whom are Emily Carr alumni. Artists within her roster have held solo exhibitions world-wide and have been nominated for international awards, including the Turner Prize, UK, and notably will represent Canada at the Venice Biennale in 2017. For the past two decades, the Catriona Jeffries Gallery has been internationally recognized as one of Canada’s pre-eminent spaces for contemporary art.

Janice Kerbel is a Canadian artist and educator who lives and works in London, UK. In addition to her art practice she is a Reader in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, UK. She completed her BFA at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in 1993 and her MA at Goldsmiths, UK in 1995. Kerbel’s art practice pushes perceptions and conventions from a variety of disciplines freeing them from their traditional use through a wide range of media including audio, print, radio plays and performance. Since the 1990s, she has received international recognition and participated in numerous exhibitions and biennales including art commissions by the Artangel Trust, London, UK and exhibiting at galleries including Tate Britain, London, UK and the ICA London. She is a 2015 Turner Prize nominee.

Jon Stovell is an inspirational business leader who has been working in the real estate investment and development industry for more than 25 years. For the past two decades, he has played an instrumental role as General Manager and now President of Reliance Properties. Stovell’s pioneering leadership was recognized in 2013 when Reliance was named the most innovative company in BC by BC Business Magazine, and when Stovell himself was named in Vancouver Magazine's Power 50 in 2014. He has developed a broad base of expertise in portfolio management with an emphasis on urban renewal focused on restoration and renovation of heritage buildings, for which his firm has earned several awards, including its contribution to high rise excellence and affordable housing. Stovell is an integral member of the Emily Carr University Capital Campaign Cabinet guiding the new campus project.

Andrew Dadson is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Vancouver. His work explores abstraction through a variety of media including paint, photography, paper and performance. Pushing the physical limits of his materials, Dadson blurs the lines of paint and canvas and his distinctive practice of thick layering of paint creates final works that are pliable, three-dimensional sculptural artworks. A 2003 graduate of Emily Carr’s Integrated Media program, Dadson held his first solo exhibition at the Helen Pitt Gallery, Vancouver, in the same year. For the past decade, he has exhibited across Canada including the Vancouver Art Gallery and The Powerplant, Toronto, to the United States and across Europe. In 2011, Dadson was awarded the prestigious Brink Award, a biennial prize presented to emerging artists working in Washington, Oregon or British Columbia.

For more than two decades, Naomi Singer has been an important community-engaged artist and cultural advocate of Vancouver. A 1989 graduate, she has been instrumental in creating cultural events, enhancing civic experiences and inspiring public creativity as the founding Artistic Director of the Secret Lantern Society, the Stanley Park Ghost Train, and the creator of the Annual Winter Solstice Lantern Festival, (now in its 23^rd year). Through her work as a festival organizer, Singer has mentored and employed numerous artists, and engaged thousands of participants and volunteers. Within her own artistic practice, she has created commissioned site-specific décor and installations for events such as the Vancouver International Film, Jazz and Writers Festivals, and the City's 125th Anniversary. In 2008, Singer was awarded the BC Community Achievement award and the Vancouver Mayor's Arts Award for Community Engaged Art in 2011.